Entrecard Tip Monday: Using Entrecard to Increase your Backlinks
Written on July 7th, 2008 by Graham
Today I’d like to talk about something that is important for all of us: increasing our backlinks. Today in the year 2008, pretty much everyone knows that the more links we have pointing to our blog, the better. First and foremost, it makes us more visible to search engines by telling those search engines “My site matters!”
A lot of people ask me, “Will Entrecard increase my backlinks?” To the untrained eye, it would seem that Entrecard has nothing to do with backlinks. The ads you place through our widget are pure javascript, and they redirect through Entrecard for tracking purposes. But to the founder of Entrecard, I say I designed this service to help you build backlinks, and it has built tens of thousands of backlinks for its members! Let me explain…
You may have noticed on your statistics page, towards the bottom of the page, is a list of your “Top Droppers”. This list displays the people who, over the last 30 days, have dropped on your widget more than anyone else. Back in the early days, I knew that bloggers would love to give their top droppers some link love. Much to my satisfaction, the plan has been going without a hitch! Bloggers all over Entrecard are giving link love to their top droppers. In fact, Google has about 2000 results for “Entrecard top droppers”. Considering each top dropper has a list of 10, we’re looking at about 20,000 links!
Imagine the possibility
The whole key to Entrecard is the same golden rule you learned in Kindergarten. “Treat others how you would like to be treated.” If you would like to receive comments, leave comments! If you would like to have your article dugg, digg others! And if you would like to be linked for being a top dropper, give your top droppers a link once a month! Can you imagine if we ALL gave our top droppers a link once a month? We would generate 130,000 links each month to each other. What better way to reward each other for their frequent visits?
How-to
Giving some link love to your top droppers is a GREAT way to reward fellow bloggers for visiting your site so frequently. Here’s how to do it:
Step 1.) Log in to Entrecard
Step 2.) Go to your statistics page
Step 3.) Scroll down and find the section labeled “Top Card Droppers”
Step 4.) Click the link to go to each blogger’s profile
Step 5.) Copy the link to their blog from their profile & paste the link into a blog post & publish!
Entrecard’s Top Droppers:
- Daisy the Curly Cat
- A Investor
- Lapidary Queen Wannabees
- Amy Lilley Designs
- Marriage and Beyond
- WorldWide Travel Blog
- Meltwater. Torrents. Meanderings. Delta.
- My Little Mermaid
- Sharp Words
- Use it Play it Test it
A Call to Action
Because of the immense benefit of our blogs linking to each other, and because of the motivation it gives others to drop on your site daily, I recommend that everyone strongly consider linking their Entrecard Top Droppers once a month. If you haven’t done so yet, why not make it a post for today and dive right in? I know 10 people who would greatly appreciate it!
July 7th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Would it be more beneficial to have a post with your top ten or to have their links in your sidebar for a month?
July 7th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Cool! I’m going to do that! Thanks.
July 7th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Both my sites use Wordpress, so I’m just going to use the rss feed sidebar to include my top droppers
July 7th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Only problem with this is Google, MSN, and Yahoo don’t see the majority of these as quality back links and on top of that will actually penalize you for low quality back links.
If you have a blog on cooking then 25 back links from blogs about making money are absolutely useless even when they carry decent page rank.
It’s always nice to give link love out and we all do it but the real benefit is having your readers check out someplace you enjoy or support.
As far as the SERPS are concerned they count the vast majority of back links but it’s only the relevant ones that will get you anywhere.
July 7th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Then it might be fair to assume that the best use of your dropping efforts is to focus dropping on sites in your niche, no?
July 7th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
No, I don’t think the best use of dropping efforts is to focus on your niche.
Yes, getting relationships within your niche is great but I think Entrecard has so much more to offer. If I only focused on my niche while dropping I would have dropped 298 cards and had 2 left to drop elsewhere. I wouldn’t be getting to know bloggers in other niches and would be missing out on some really great blogs and friendships.
I think in the long run we have so much more to offer one another than just a top dropper link. Many people will read this post and at the end of the month you’ll have 5 times as many people posting their top droppers and hundred or thousands of pretty useless links just sitting there doing nothing.
I’m starting to see a lot more cross niche linkage within Entrecard which is awesome. A cooking blog linking to a knitting blog saying by the way Marge makes great knitted hotplates…or people linking out to help other bloggers causes such as Serena.
The digg, stumble, comment, and link campaigns while good thoughts get misused eventually by the masses thinking that this will be the big thing that will make my blog explode when in reality it does little to nothing for them or Entrecard.
You have a formidable force of blogs in Entrecard why not try harnessing that for something awesome that will bring good things for the bloggers and Entrecard. Get behind a cause…get behind a thought…get behind eachother. I think there’s 15000 blogs here…imagine what we could do if we all got behind something.
I don’t mean 15000 blogs commenting or digging eachother but finding that one thing to unite us all and change something…anything.
I don’t know what that one thing is. I keep thinking but I can’t seem to find it but with 15000 of us I’m sure some good ideas would come up.
July 7th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I am not giving away all my awesome ideas for free anymore!
July 7th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
I think all of you people should be linking to me.. or something.
July 7th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Thanks for the tb link
July 7th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Thanks for the link and recognition as well.
July 7th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
I love entre card, I can’t believe how much dropping I am doing,
I know what I will do for the community, I will give reviews, and also some link backs where I can.
What a great site….so many blogs , so much content, I love to travel around and taking a read here and there while I drop a card. I will be more active with community members soon.
July 8th, 2008 at 2:00 am
I agree with talen. Though the suggested linking to top droppers might seem benificial to both parties, I think it’s a bad practice to effective linking.
Even if you’re not interested with that SEO and the do’s and don’ts, I think it’s not a good idea afterall to just make back links and in turn make your site look like a link farm. Irrelevancy is another.
July 8th, 2008 at 7:38 am
I think each blog forms it’s own community of readers and bloggers. Readers stop by a certain blog over and over again for the content, for the interactivity in the comments, for the fun stuff between other bloggers. You can’t be everything to all readers, but if you stay focused on your own style of blogging, linking where linking is due, giving credit where credit is due, and trying to stay true to your blogging style, then search engine recognition, improved page rankings, backlinks, all that will come.
I found a google gadget and posted about it. A lot of EntreCards are using it to show Their Top 10-25 EntreCard droppers in their sidebars. It’s a blogger decision to give those frequent droppers recognition. Are they good backlinks? Are they weak backlinks? Are they backlinks that will end up penalizing my blog in the rankings? I don’t care because I appreciate the bloggers that have dropped entrecards on my blog every day for the last 30 days. Chances are, those bloggers are my loyal readers. Chances are I have commented on their blogs and they have commented on mine. Chances are, there are quality backlinks between our blogs that having nothing to do with Top Dropper Recognition.
Every tool you can use to reach out to your readers is a great tool. And Graham is 100% correct. If you don’t have a top Drop widget pulling from the rss feed already in your sidebar, write a monthly post. It isn’t just about backlinks. It isn’t about Search Engine Rankings. It’s about a goodwill towards your own community of bloggers who frequent your blog.
GRAHAM, THANKS FOR THE GREAT POST, AND THANKS FOR THE LINK LOVE! IT’S MUCH APPRECIATED!
Matt Urdan
Meltwater. Torrents. Meanderings. Delta.
July 8th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
I’ve noticed a lot more of those you drop I link widgets pop up. I have recognized my top droppers in posts before, but I lost my page rank shortly after that. I don’t think the two are linked but I find that blogging about Entrecard takes away from the focus of my blog which is to put my personal views about current events on the page.
@Graham, great tip, will be looking for more!
July 8th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Hooray for Daisy The Curly Cat for being a top Entrecard dropper!
She’s also an Entrecat, so that’s extra cool!
On my 3 blogs, each Sunday I post the links to the Entrecarders who purchased an ad on that blog the previous week, as an extra thanks.
I saw this at CrAzY Working Mom and Comedy Plus, and adopted it to my blogs. That way my advertisers on It’s A Blog Eat Blog World, Captured By Gravity, and Purrchance To Dream get a bit more *bang* for their Entrecard buck!
July 8th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Good tip..
Entrecard dropper list is a good idea to share and gain backlinks..
July 9th, 2008 at 7:36 am
So who is the founder of Entrecard?
July 9th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Thanks for the link love!
July 11th, 2008 at 12:05 am
I made a post a while back with 10 sites on E that I recommend. I made sure each were quality sites and somehow beneficial to my readers… (Aerten Art – Art for the home and design, etc.) It was an appreciation post and something different from what I normally put together. I’m going to take the time soon and do it again…
I agree with linking to niche content and sites that will boost you on the SE’s… It’s easy to do if you get creative. I love the top droppers widgets on sites though. It tells the rest of the community who is serious and who else to drop on… Not only does it provide them with a link but it also gets them more drops…
July 11th, 2008 at 11:59 am
You said that right. Rewarding your top droppers can be really benefitial, not only because this encourages them to visit your site regularly but also to drop on your widgets, thus you getting some loyal readers and droppers at the same time.
July 11th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
I used to do this all the time, but got away from making many Entrecard posts. I will agree with the others that Google is not going to give alot of weight to these links, but they will give some weight.
The real benefit of this won’t come directly from the linking process but from the additional technorati rank you will gain. This will probably give you a better boost in the long run and as a result will cause Google to like your site even more.
If you follow any of the A-list bloggers who blog about blogging, then they pretty much all say to link liberally and to link often.
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:13 pm
indeed, entrecard has built traffic to my less-than-a-month-old sites!
and this is great idea: linking your top droppers once a month. thanks for this.
August 14th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I will try that, sounds interesting to me.